Cage of Her Design
by SecretTwin
Summary: He was her favorite person in the whole world. How could he not see it? Eurus would prove it. She would be his favorite too. And then everything would make sense.
1. Chapter 1

**Disclaimer: I do not own BBC Sherlock.**

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 **2017**

 _"GET IN HERE ALL OF YOU! Stop me killing him! No... wait. Stop me in a minute."_

-x-

It started with the grapes. Mummy always cut the grapes in half because Eurus was so young she might choke on them. Sherlock did not need the grapes cut in half because he was older, but Mummy said it was easier just to cut them in half for both of them. Mummy was always adamant about cutting food in small bites. Sherlock did not seem to mind, just so long as the food did not touch food of different colours. He was weird like that, but Daddy said everyone was a bit weird.

Eurus remembers the first game she ever played with her big brother. She was three years old and he was four. Sherlock loved to talk. Not about important things, like Mycroft did, but about things that were important to him, which were usually not very important to Eurus.

She asked Mycroft to get the grapes off the high shelf in the fridge, because Mummy and Daddy were working in the garden, and she and Sherlock were too small to reach them. But Mycroft did not want to cut the grapes for them. He was busy, like always. He said they were too old to choke on grapes anyway. Eurus agreed. Mycroft was so wise, so clever. He knew everything. If Mycroft said that they were old enough to eat whole grapes, then they were old enough.

Mycroft set the bowl on the table and left them alone. Eurus and Sherlock squished the whole grapes in their mouths while the adults continued their work outside. Grapes are yummy and sweet. It amused Eurus to squish them, like bugs under her shoe.

Sherlock had been talking, talking, talking and Eurus wished he would stop because he was being irritating. She thought of hitting him so he would be silent, and suddenly he did stop. His eyes grew wide like on the surprised face and he tapped at his throat. His mouth opened wide and his tongue hung out like a floppy red fish.

This amused Eurus. Sherlock liked to make faces at her, and they were typically not funny, but this time it was funny. He really did look like a stupid little fish. And he was quiet.

She giggled and bit into another grape.

Sherlock's hands fluttered on the table and he grabbed Eurus's arm and shook, his other hand over his throat. She shoved him away. Mummy didn't like it when she pushed because pushing was bad, but touching was even worse because Eurus did not like to be touched, and Sherlock knew this!

How delightful. Not a single sound from him. His mouth was still opening and closing. Mouths like food. She picked up another grape and held it to his mouth. He shook his head – his face was red now – and the grape fell to the floor.

Sherlock tumbled out of his chair, his arm swept across the table and the grape bowl toppled over the edge. It smashed. Eurus flinched at the noise. She slid out of the chair onto the shards. She searched for the grape. Her palms pressed into more shards. The grapes lay scattered across the floor. They looked pretty against the white tile, like polka dots. Eurus enjoyed patterns.

More loud noises made her skin feel like it was being yanked on from all directions. She looked up. Sherlock pounded on the door. His hands slipped on the knob and he continued to bang. His curly hair blocked his funny face. His palm slapped on the wood.

Mummy's yellow hair shined through the kitchen window. A flash of Daddy's blue eyeball.

She ate another grape off the floor. She was too small to reach the knob and Daddy did not like it when Sherlock acted like a baby. He was tall enough to reach the knob, so he should be able to open the door.

Eurus reached for another grape and noticed the red on her palms. She frowned. Pieces of the yellow pottery stuck in her hand. She touched it, and a jab of terrible feeling shot up her wrist. It was a tickle. She did not like it when Daddy tickled her. But it was worse than a tickle.

She had seen the red before. It came from Sherlock's mouth when he lost a tooth. She touched the red again, and dipped her finger under the flap of skin. The tickle happened again. It felt sharp. Mean. Mean like when Sherlock pushed her.

She did not like the red. The red was mean.

She opened her mouth and, after so many minutes of silence, the noise out of her mouth was positively shattering. The feeling in her skin was back. She wanted to pull it off, crawl out of her body and leave the terrible feeling. So she made her voice go louder.

The door crashed open, slammed against the wall and Mummy crouched next to Eurus and took her hand. Eurus continued to laugh and wet dripped from her eyes. Mummy made her voice very loud. Eurus covered her ears. She got the red on her face. It felt thick, like paint.

Daddy was there and Eurus saw Sherlock over Mummy's shoulder. Sherlock's face was red, so red and his lips were dark. His eyes were red around the blue.

Mummy set Eurus on the counter and held her hands with a towel.

Mycroft and Daddy were running. At least, that's what it seemed like to Eurus. They weren't really running, but their mouths were moving very fast and loud and Daddy held Sherlock's underarms and cupped one hand around his fist and squeezed him, digging his hands into his tummy.

Eurus kicked her feet against the counter. Her feet tickled just like her hands. She laughed.

Mycroft's face was white, like snow.

"Come on," Daddy said. Daddy looked gray and Sherlock was blue, and Eurus was red. It was funny how many different colours people could turn.

Mummy gripped Eurus's hands and squished the telephone between her cheek and her shoulder. Her voice was high pitched and squeaky, like a mouse.

Eurus watched Sherlock. His eyelids fluttered and his mouth still hung open. Eurus laughed. Mummy hushed her and pressed the rag against her feet. The red dripped to the tile.

Sherlock coughed and a dark, wet pebble popped out of his mouth with a rush of air.

Daddy was crying and he laid Sherlock on the floor, petting his hair, and Sherlock sucked in air like the hoover, wheezy and raspy. His face went pink then red and water dripped from his eyes and nose, but his chest moved up and down, and making noises.

Mycroft looked like a giant, invisible puppet master snipped all his wires and the chair creaked when he collapsed. He rested his elbows on his knees and hid his face in his hands. Eurus did not know why he was so upset. They were playing a game. Games were fun. Eurus was very good at games.

They all went to surgery and the doctor with bad breath had to stitch Eurus back together, like Mummy did with Sherlock's trousers when he tore the knees open. Daddy had to carry her to the kitchen and toilet because her feet were still healing. She could not colour in her books for a while because her hands hurt.

A week later, Eurus sat on the counter while Mummy cut salad. She liked the shiny knife, it made rainbows shine on the tile. Sherlock ruined it though because he was being loud again. Always loud. Eurus frowned. Frowny face represented anger.

"I want to play the game again," she said, incorrectly because she could not pronounce her /L/s.

Mummy smiled and gave her a strip of lettuce. "What game love?"

"The grape game."

Mummy set the knife down. Her eyebrows went squiggly. "Grape game?"

Eurus nodded.

"How do you play?"

Eurus smiled at Sherlock who had finally gone quiet.

"Get to see who don't go _ghk_!" Eurus wrapped her hands around her throat and made the funny sound that Sherlock had made. She laughed.

Mummy's eyes went wide. "Why do you think it's a game?"

Eurus explained. Mycroft had wanted to see who could outsmart the grape. Eurus, because she was smarter, knew not to talk so much, and did not let the grape choke her. Perhaps if they played again, Sherlock would be clever enough to win. Or he would be stupid enough to choke.

Mummy's eyebrows matched the frowny face and her mouth twisted in a weird shape, maybe completely turned down like the sad face. Eurus could not tell if she was angry because her mouth kept moving.

Later, after Mummy had a long talk with Mycroft, Mycroft showed her a picture of the inside of a human body. He showed her the lungs. He told her to take a deep breath, then hold it. Mycroft told her to pinch her nose. After a while, her chest started feeling funny. Mycroft explained oxygen and lungs, and if she did not have air in her lungs, then she would die. That is what choking is. Sherlock could not get air in his lungs. If Daddy had not squeezed him, Sherlock could have died.

"Do you understand?" he said.

Eurus nodded.

Dying was when a person in the telly and in the books went to sleep and never woke up. But that was just make believe. When she went to sleep, she dreamed, and in the morning she would wake. So would Sherlock. So it was okay. Eurus wanted to see him turn funny colors again.

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 **This is an experiment. I did not really enjoy the Final Problem, but for fanfic writers there is an opportunity with everything Mofftiss gives us. But the introduction of a third Holmes sibling screwed up my** **head canon.**


	2. Chapter 2

**Thank you all for comments!**

 **Disclaimer: I do not own anything from BBC Sherlock.**

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Musgrave Hall contained a vast attic filled with old furniture and crates of ancestral worth. On rainy days when Sherlock and Eurus could not venture outside, because Mummy did not like mud on her floors, they enjoyed exploring the attic for hours on end.

Eurus was not tall enough to climb the creaky steps until she was four and Sherlock was five. Mummy said they were not allowed alone in the attic, because they could hurt themselves. Eurus said that she would not hurt herself. That would be silly. Why would someone hurt themselves on purpose? Sherlock seemed constantly prone to hurting himself. He tripped over his shoelaces, bumped his head one too many times. Maybe that was why he had trouble thinking.

They were not allowed in the attic unless Mycroft was with them, but he sometimes let them go on their own if they didn't tell him.

Sherlock liked to search for "treasures" when he explored. Outside in the graveyard, he would dig around the gravestones because there was no one buried underneath. Only real graveyards had coffins and skeletons in them. Inside, in the attic, he would open the chests and wardrobes and dig through the junk until he found something worth keeping. Sherlock said they were treasures, but not the gold coins in the stories.

One day, he found an old pirate hat and a wooden sword and books on pirates under a stack of old records. He smiled so big that Eurus thought his mouth would tear in two, leaving a big gaping hole in his face. She wanted to push him down the stairs and make him stop smiling. It was not fair that he found an insignificant party hat and toy amusing when Eurus had so many more fantastic abilities she could use to amuse him. He never paid attention to her. She always had to pay attention to him. She couldn't help it. He was so loud.

Sherlock kept the hat and sword in their room, and did not take off that silly hat for weeks. He tried to sleep in it, but Mummy put it on the high shelf where he could not reach.

Sometimes Eurus snuck into the attic even on nice days. She needed to be alone. She liked to spread a blanket out on the floor and watch the dust swirl in the sunshine. She could lose herself up there, high, high above everyone else, lost in the antique past until she herself turned into another long forgotten familial sentiment.

While Sherlock searched for buried treasure, Eurus supposed she could search as well. There were books, old and dusty, and chewed at some of the ends. There were journals written by old Holmeses, and worn leather bindings faded from years of disuse. And then there were the tomes that she could not read at all. She asked Mycroft why the words made no sense, and he told her that the story was in Latin. Another was in Italian and French. Mycroft had learned French in the school. He started teaching Eurus. They sat in the library for hours for her lessons. Mycroft tried to teach Sherlock about these things, but Sherlock was too busy playing make-believe and did not care about real life.

"If you never learn anything you will end up a bum on the streets!" he exclaimed.

Sherlock said that he would end up on the high seas.

Sherlock found treasures that he could collect, but Eurus found treasures in what she learned from the history of the Holmes estate. It was an endless well of information. Mycroft and Mummy and Daddy praised her for her intellect and desire to learn. Sherlock said she was boring, but he didn't know any better. He was simple after all, entertained by simple, replaceable things.

Eurus finally understood when she discovered her second most beloved treasure on a warm Spring afternoon. An old violin case lay hidden under the dusty piano. The rusty hinges squealed when she opened it from years of disuse. She plucked at the strings and the sound filled the attic with a beautiful chord that only make-believe could create. For the first time in her life, she saw an entire new world in front of her eyes, created solely from the sound.

Nothing could reach her. All that mattered was the music.

Eurus cradled it in her arms and showed it to Mycroft. He twisted the pegs at the end and the strings tightened. Eurus strummed the strings and the sound flowed through her like a stream of water. Mycroft showed her how to hold the bow, but it was too worn to play properly. The horse hairs worn down to the very last strings.

Music is an escape within. It disconnects her from the heavy, prying teeth of existence. When she first discovered the power of her violin, she never put down the instrument. But it was more than just an instrument, nothing like the silverware Mummy set at the table. It was more than a tool. Her violin was an extension of her. She drowned out Sherlock's talking, and the boring adult talk at the dinner table, and the constant whirring thinking that makes Eurus want to crawl out of her skin.

She played in her world and watched the colors.

When Mummy and Daddy saw her talent, they purchased a new violin for her and found a tutor to instruct her in playing. But he was a stupid teacher. He did not understand music, not like Eurus did. He did not see the colors that each note made, did not see the changes in the air that could be felt because of the music.

The music woke something hidden deep, something she could not explain no matter how many books she searched through. She wished she could see inside.

Other treasures were not as enlightening. Another time she found a dusty cat in an even dustier corner behind an old desk. It was stiff and asleep, posed on a block of wood. When she pet it, a thick cloud of dust puffed in her face and made her sneeze. She knew Sherlock would like it because he liked animals so she showed it to him. He scrunched up his nose and said it was fake.

Eurus knew it wasn't fake, because the previous winter, she found another cat, stiff and frozen on the other side of the barn, just like this cat.

Another game they played, that Eurus liked to play, was hide and seek, which was like treasure hunting. Eurus liked to hide behind the furniture with the white sheets over them and jump out with the sheet over her head and scare Sherlock. He always jumped and cried, but only because he read too many fake stories with white sheets in them and he thought they were scary. He believed the white sheets would hurt him.

But he was silly. White sheets were incapable of hurting him.

Scary describes a source of fear. Fear was a mixture of the surprised and sad faces, with the wide mouth and the sad eyes. When Sherlock was scared, he hid his face and curled into himself.

Sherlock was scared of three things. Grapes, white sheets, and the dark, and the results were the same for the white sheets and the dark, but with the grapes she never got to see his reaction because he refused to eat them after he choked that one time.

Eurus was not frightened of anything because nothing could hurt her, and so she did not know what it felt like to be scared.

Until Victor Trevor.

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 **There's Chapter Two! If you liked it, please review.**


	3. Chapter 3

**You have no idea how happy it makes me when I get wonderful comments. It pushes me to keep writing.**

 **Disclaimer: I do not own BBC Sherlock.**

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When Sherlock was six and Eurus was five, the Trevor boy moved into a cottage down the road from Musgrave Hall. It was a five minute walk. Eurus read in the old family records that the Holmes' land used to extend to several acres past the current fence. The river, the forest, the road, all of it used to belong to Great Great Grandad Holmes.

Mummy made them go with her to take a pie to them. Victor's mother was a portly woman with puffy bags beneath her eyes and frizzy hair. Eurus could hear her knees crack when she crouched down to say hello. She smiled a lot, but not a happy smile. There was something wrong with her eyes. Eurus hid behind Mummy's skirt and refused to speak to her.

Victor and Sherlock did not speak much at first. Sherlock had gotten better at talking. Eurus barely had to remind him of his lisp anymore.

Victor scrunched his smashed in nose and frowned. "What happened to your hands," he said to Eurus.

Ms. Trevor slapped the back of Victor's head.

"Mum! What? What'd I say?"

Victor had a "bum accent" as Mycroft put it. His tongue was too big for his mouth so he rolled the letters around willy nilly. Victor did not have a smart older brother to teach him how to speak correctly.

Eurus looked down at her palms. The scars had healed, but sometimes when she played her violin for hours and hours and hours, they would become puffy and ache.

Sherlock stepped forward. "She got cut up," he said.

Victor stuck out his lower lip. "Did it hurt?"

Eurus cocked her head and slid her face out from behind Mummy's skirt just to look at him. Even with one eye, she could observe every part of him. His eyes were small and dull, and he had an uninteresting face. He slumped while standing, and picked his nose and stuck the snot in his pocket when he thought no one was looking.

He did not have the hands for musical instruments. His fingernails were dirty and the knees on his trousers were stained. He liked to stick his hands in dirty places, and his mother did nothing about it.

Mummy patted the back of Eurus' head. "She's a bit shy."

Eurus dug her fingers into Mummy's skirt. Mummy always felt the need to find an excuse for why Eurus refused to talk to people. 'Shy' was a softer behavior parents used to excuse rudeness, Mycroft said. And Eurus could be very rude, but only because people did not like it when she spoke the truth.

It made people uncomfortable.

Ms. Trevor smiled again. "S'okay. Vicky could learn a fing or two 'bout silence. What've I told you bout questions like that?"

"Mum!"

"Go show them around. Make friends. I'll make us a cup a tea dear."

Eurus did not want to see Victor's room, did not want to be in the house any longer. But Sherlock took her hand and like a dog on a leash, she followed.

Victor said he was 7 years old, and Sherlock said he was six and a half. Eurus pinched his arm. He was not supposed to tell fibs. He was six years old and barely two months. She said so.

Victor did not want her to come into his room. He pointed to the sign. She told him that he had misspelled 'girls'.

He slammed the door on her, nearly catching her fingers in the jam. Eurus lay down on the floor so one of her eyes could peer through the crack under the door. She could see their shoes, and a few toys. Sherlock sounded excited.

She kept Sherlock's shoes in sight.

When Mummy said it was time to go, Sherlock did not want to leave because Victor had a box of painted wooden sailors. Ms. Trevor smiled. "Nice to see Vick's made a friend."

Sherlock's eyes went wide and his mouth shifted up at the corner. Eurus felt something coil and turn to lead in her stomach. She balled her fists and stomped out of the house.

When they got home, Sherlock told Daddy that he wanted his own room because Victor had his own room.

Eurus drew a picture of Victor Trevor nailed to a crucifix.

-x-

Eurus felt like she was constantly peering under doors to get even a glimpse of Sherlock after Victor made him his friend. Too much was changing and Eurus' head pounded constantly from the terribleness.

Suddenly Sherlock slept in his own room down the hall, and he did not want to be called Sherlock because Victor called him Billy. But that was not his name. Eurus refused to call him Billy.

"Yellow-bearded Bill," he explained. He was a pirate, with a trusty second mate Redbeard. Second mates were the first mate's most favorite person.

William was such a dull name, nothing like Mycroft or Eurus. Sherlock wanted to be dull, the first name Mummy gave him like he was nothing special. There were a million billion Williams in the world. There was only one Sherlock Holmes.

Eurus now slept alone. It was her room, and she could spread her toys and books out as far as she wanted, yet she still religiously kept them on one side of the room.

Sherlock slept alone, kept his room a mess. Sometimes he did not come home from Victor's house because he stayed the night.

Eurus had never understood how people formed connections in a way that she could not. Sherlock would rather play with strangers than sit with the one he was related to through blood. And yet they were as different as ice and snow.

Eurus sat forgotten, watching behind the glass.

Her jaw felt tense, and her heart thumped too hard whenever Victor was even brought up. Which was often.

Why was he so wonderful? How could Sherlock find it so easy to fit another person in his life when they had all they needed?

Eurus drew her family in order. Daddy, Mummy, Mycroft, Sherlock, and her. There. Five. The perfect number. There was no room for Victor.

Sherlock did not want Eurus around when he played with Victor, but Mummy made him when Eurus said the right words. When she let tears out of her eyes, when she made her voice go high.

Eurus was good at playing people like her violin. She could tune them just right and make them react the way she wanted.

Victor called her a robot, and held his arms out straight and walked around with stiff legs, saying, "Calculating emotions." He pointed at her and laughed.

But his laugh was not like Sherlock's. His was taunting and cruel. She wanted to make him laugh like Sherlock.

Robots were machines, pure in thinking, assigned to do only one thing and they felt no emotions. They had only one facial expression so it was not difficult to figure out what they were thinking. They did not think about anything impractical.

Sometimes Eurus felt cold inside, even when sitting close to the fireplace. There was something inside that made her cold.

Perhaps it was the wires and metal that Victor talked about. Perhaps he was right. It would be the only time he would be right.

The knife was cold on her skin.

She had not seen the red in a long long time. She forgot how much it tickled. It dripped down her hip and stained her feet. She left red footprints in the tub.

Sherlock found her laying against the bathtub. She does not remember him coming in, but he laughed so loudly that it made her ears ring, and that woke her up some. She looked down at her leg where the flap of skin peeled over. She made her leg flop around and that made her skin look like Mummy's cooked ham. She laughed too, and that made Sherlock laugh till he cried.

She was so relieved that he could still laugh. She had not heard it in such a long time. She wanted to open him up too and see if he looked the same inside as she did.

But the knife was too heavy and Mycroft had pushed him out of the way.

Sherlock spent more time with her after that. Mummy and Daddy made her talk with a lady with big glasses. She asked Eurus if she felt happy.

"I don't need to be happy," she answered.

Victor did not tease Eurus for a while after she came home from hospital with thirty stitches in her leg. He seemed repentant for his past words, even though he had not hurt her in the slightest. Eurus told him so.

He turned white and pointed a finger at her. "Freak!"

Sherlock pushed him and said not to call her that.

"But she is! Me mum says that anyone who cuts themselves to ribbons like that'll wind up in the looney bin."

"She's not crazy!"

He glared at Eurus over Sherlock's shoulder. "She'll try to kill you next."

Victor ended up with a black eye, and Sherlock with a broken nose. The bruises lasted much longer than the feud.

Sherlock rarely ventured to Eurus's room after bedtime, but that night, the light from the hallway flooded across her bare floor. She could pick out the bushy hair in the dark from the moon if she were able.

Sherlock stood by her bedside. Eurus did not move over, because she did not want him in her bed. So instead he knelt on the floor and gripped the sheet.

"You... you didn't want to die, do you?" he whispered.

Eurus blinked at him with one eye. One half of her face was smushed into the pillow.

"I wanted to see how my muscles worked," she recited, and Sherlock seemed to believe her. But he would believe anything she told him.

"Didn't it hurt?"

She shook her head.

"Victor says dying hurts. His Papa died." He bowed low and his back jumped and he sniffled. "I don't want you to die."

She started reading about death. When a person died, in real life, they never came back, just like Victor's papa. Dead bodies could not speak, could not move, and eventually they faded away, leaving only a memory.

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 **Please comment if you enjoyed.**


	4. Chapter 4

**Just so you know, I tweaked the last chapter a bit, just the end. I wasn't really happy with it, so I added a bit more.**

 **Disclaimer: I do not own BBC Sherlock, but I do love breaking his heart.**

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When it first started, the closest term Eurus could think of was 'hobby,' but not like Mummy's hobbies like knitting or baking. Eurus' was more on the level of her adoration of her violin. Now that she is older, Eurus knows that her desire was even a step up from adoration. Nothing could compare to the rush she felt. Music allowed her to create, but it was not enough. She wanted to be like the make believe man who created everything and wiped all the people out in one day. She wanted to wash away every stupid person who made her feel small.

Her obsession began with the dog.

Victor's dog, to be precise. A little, yellow scraggly thing with tufts of hair missing and small, sharp teeth. It was not allowed in the house, so it stayed out, even in the rain, which made it smell. Animals were disgusting. They did not bathe, and they were stupid enough to be domesticated.

Eurus hated the dog. It was always there, snapping at her whenever she got close to the gate. She wanted to kick it hard enough so its head snapped off. She climbed on Sherlock's back so he could carry her to the front door. The dog liked him. It swished its scruffy tail back and forth and licked his hand with its slobbery gross tongue.

Victor called her scared cat. It was more of an insult than when he called her freak. Cats were no better than dogs. Sherlock told her the dog was not going to bite her. Eurus was not afraid. How could someone be afraid of a pathetic dog? A dog could not hurt her.

Sherlock wanted a doggy. He begged and begged Daddy for one, but again and again Daddy told him that he had an allergy, but they could get any other pet within reason (because Sherlock's second choice was an elephant).

In the end they had no pets because of what happened.

Eurus liked to draw dogs and cats hanging off spikes, like furry lollies. Mummy asked her where she had seen such a horrible thing. Eurus told her she read about a vampire who impaled people because he didn't like them.

Mummy took away all the history books after that.

It was okay though. Eurus liked science better. She liked learning about how the world worked according to ordinary people. Eurus was very good at mathematics and languages and music, because they had rules and structure. A maths equation could not be solved if all the variables were not correct, and music would sound horrid if the instrument was out of tune. It was simple and the pieces fell into place like a puzzle, putting the world together.

One day Mycroft gave her a book about how people think, and why they behave certain ways. It was all very standard and dull. Eurus knew why people acted the way they did, just not individuals. It was stupid that a stupid scientist thought he could generalize every individual in the world by grouping them into a category.

"Am I a crazy?" Eurus asked Mycroft.

He wrinkled his nose. "Absolutely not. Crazies have to be locked up. Not much of a mind either. Not like you. They just sit staring and drooling at walls all day."

He asked if she thought she was crazy.

"Sometimes," she said. "But then I come home and you make me normal again. I think everyone else is a crazy. We should lock them up." She traced an eyeball in the book.

She wanted a real eyeball. One that she could touch and roll and cut into to see how it worked. Or even better, a little rat that she could put into a maze just like the doctors did to test its intelligence. She read about doctors that made the rat crawl over hot wires and burn its little crawling feet until it went through the right door. If Eurus had a rat though, she would just put it in a box with no way out.

Maybe she could borrow Victor.

There was nothing in the psychology book about why she behaved the way she did. The closest was a chapter about people who did not feel remorse, who lied, and who hurt others. The words describing those types were rather offensive. Eurus did not understand what was wrong with not feeling guilt. She felt no other form of sentiment - none that she could recall - not like Sherlock who cried when Eurus crushed the little mouse in its trap, or turned white when he thought of the dark. Eurus felt nothing. Hurting people and animals was just a symptom of that nothingness.

So she tore that book to pieces and instead read about the physical parts of people. The human body was weak and pathetic, and could die in so many ways. People could choke, or drown, which was like choking but on water, and be crushed, and beaten. People could even die if they didn't sleep.

Eurus tried to see how long she could live without sleep. It was easy the first few nights, because she did not sleep much anyway. Sleep was boring. She liked to sneak into Sherlock's room and watch him sleep. But after three days, she fell asleep at breakfast. Mummy thought she was sick and fed her chicken soup.

Other experiments were not so disastrous.

With trial and error, she learned what foods Tubs liked to eat, which ones he would actually walk up to Eurus and take from her palm, which ones he would spit out. It was important that the dog ingested what she gave it.

Daddy kept the arsenic in the garage above the fertilizer and weed killer.

Tubs ate a scrumptious last supper out of Eurus's hand. It was the only time she allowed the dog to slobber all over her.

She pat its head and before it could get away, snatched it by its collar and clubbed it twice with the cricket bat. Blood burst from a spot in front of its ear. She released it before it could bite her and it scampered away, whimpering and whining.

Eurus dropped the bat and walked home.

It was late August. Sherlock's bruises had faded.

Sherlock asked her if she killed the dog, because Victor suspected her. He wanted to prove his stupid pet wrong. She told Sherlock the dog killed himself. It wanted to get away from Victor.

Sherlock never left her and Victor alone together after that. Mummy still made him take Eurus with them whenever they played at the creek, Mycroft a constant vigil nearby.

Sherlock made Victor smile. They put on their silly costumes, played with their fake swords. All fake, all make believe. Eurus had never been good at make believe. She liked to imagine what could be, not what could never be. She imagined what Redbeard would look like if he really was missing an eye underneath the patch.

Since the dog was gone, there was room for her to join their games, but Victor bared his sword at her.

"If you come near us, I'll gut you, freak," he whispered.

She blinked. "You don't scare me Redbeard."

"You'll be locked up. Everyone knows dog killers get the chair."

Eurus was not sure as to which chair he was referring.

"Then it'll just be me and Billy, and he'll forget all about you."

Eurus looked down at the toy plane in her hands. Victor turned on his heel and chased after Sherlock. She watched them together. Her vision blurred and her throat felt tight.

She wanted that horrible, horrible boy gone. She wanted to put him in a dark place where she could forget about him, where he could rot from their memories and she and Sherlock could start over, like before he had met him.

Not even her violin could comfort her that night. She did not want Sherlock to leave her. He was real, and warm, and he laughed so beautifully. Eurus would have nothing like that if Victor took him from her. Mycroft marveled at her intelligence, and Mummy praised her and Daddy kissed her, but Sherlock... Sherlock feared her.

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 **Horrible.**


	5. Chapter 5

**A/N: The circumstances of Victor's disappearance are different in this version because I'm too much of a moron to understand how anyone is supposed to solve the riddle. If you've got an answer for me, please let me hear it.**

 **Disclaimer: I do not own BBC Sherlock, but I do hold his precious heart in my hands.**

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 _I that am lost,_

 _oh who will find me,_

 _Deep down below_

 _The old beech tree?_

 _-_ x-

Mummy worried about Eurus not sleeping. She took her to the doctor. Eurus had never liked the doctor's. It smelled and the doctor liked to poke and prod her. But it was a means to an end.

"I'm not tired Mummy, honest," she said.

Mummy had purple splotches under her eyes, and she slouched more than usual while driving them home. Eurus made sure to get Mummy up at three in the morning for several days until she was tired enough to take her to get medicine. Eurus predicted it.

"We just want you back to normal, dear," Mummy said. "Doctor Levins says you've got to take your medicine so we can get you to sleep."

She swallowed the white pills with a glass of water. Milk made her sick. The first night, Mummy put her to bed at 8:30. Eurus woke at 6 the next morning. It was ample sleep time.

After that first night, she hid the pills under her tongue and saved them in a little earring box that she had stolen from Mummy beneath the mattress. She remained awake. She snuck to the attic in the early morning hours and played her violin in the moonlight. She was as true as she could ever be up there. She was free from the terrible gravity that weighed her down day in and day out. When the house was silent, she could think. Her violin helped her think. Sometimes she played until the sun came up.

She scoured the maps of the old Musgrave property, past the barn, past the creek, just on the other side of the small woods that Sherlock and Victor loved to explore. The property ended at a creaky wooden fence with several slats missing or lying in the tall grass. Daddy had made it explicitly clear that the three of them were not allowed past that point, because there were old trenches and wells out there that had been covered up, but someone small enough could fall down in them. And if that happened, it would be very difficult to get them out. Daddy said nothing about Eurus going by herself though.

It was more fun to explore on her own anyway.

-x-

The night began as it always did. Mummy fed Eurus her pill, kissed her goodnight and turned out the lights. Eurus spit the pill out on the rug that time. She listened to Mummy and Daddy amble about downstairs, and Mycroft run the tap in the loo. Sherlock begged for a story, but Mummy did not give it.

One hour, and all had settled down. Mummy and Daddy still watching telly, Mycroft's light still on for his nightly read.

Two hours, and the house was quiet. All lights off, Mummy and Daddy drifting off.

Three hours, and Eurus finally threw the covers off. She dug her secret box out from under the mattress and dumped all the pills out in her hand. She used a hammer she found in the garage to crush them all into fine white powder.

Earlier that day, Mummy had made lemonade. Eurus dumped the powder in a plastic cup with a cartoon face on the side. The faces made Eurus want to puke up her drinks so all her cups were blue. She used the step stool in the loo to fill an old sippy cup with water. She carried the special lemonade and the ordinary water up to the attic, and made a picnic snack under a window where the light shined brightest. They were tucked between a book case and an old trunk that locked from the outside.

It was time.

Sherlock was a sound sleeper, Eurus knew from their days when they shared a room. He slept with little worries and dreamed pleasantly.

She never got to be this close to him when he was awake, not since the dog died. She dragged the pad of her finger down his forehead, over his eye, down his pudgy cheek. She did it again, with just a bit more pressure, then dug her nail into his skin and raked it down his cheek until she left a pink line.

His eyelids fluttered, and his mouth scrunched like paper.

"Mmhuh?"

Eurus clicked on her flashlight, but turned it down when Sherlock shut his eyes tight. She pressed a finger to her lips. "Sh. Wake up."

He pressed his hand to his cheek. "Whatta doing?"

"I found something upstairs."

Sherlock seemed to instantly wake up more. He rubbed his sleepy eyes and threw back the cover. He threw a blanket over his shoulders and followed Eurus on tiptoe.

Sherlock's smile fell slightly when he saw the picnic under the window, but he sat when he saw the snacks prepared. They sat on their knees in the moonlight. Eurus made sure to keep her movements slow.

He wiped his mouth after a big gulp from his cup. "I hear you some nights," he said. "What do you do up here?"

She touched her violin laying at the corner of the picnic blanket. "I like it up here," she said.

Sherlock rubbed his eyes. "Why?"

"No one hates me here."

"I..." he yawned, "... like you." Something was absent in his eyes as they trailed over the room. " 's thisa dream?"

Instead of answering, Eurus hefted her violin and the bow and played softly for him. He smiled and closed his eyes. He was snoring after five minutes.

When she was sure he was really asleep, she scratched the bow across the strings in a cacophony that was sure to shatter glass, but his eyelids did not even flutter. She climbed on top of him and dug her nails in as deep as she could and carved them down his cheeks. Droplets of blood oozed out of the puffy scratches. His head lolled to the side.

She stowed her violin back in its case and dragged Sherlock by the ankles to the trunk. She heaved it open. She had emptied it out days before so now a small body could fit with little problem.

She curled Sherlock inside with his knees touching his chest and droped the lid over him. She turned the key round once, and tossed it behind her, hearing it clatter amongst the junk. She caressed the lid of the trunk and kissed it.

At last, she had her rat in its box.

"See you tomorrow," she whispered.

She was dressed and outside before the grandfather clock chimed midnight.

-x-

It was simple to lure Victor away from his house. Eurus knew what he would leave for. For the dog, it was ham, for Sherlock it was the promise of treasure. Victor was not as stupid as Mycroft believed. The boy was smarter than his dog, and would not follow Eurus for just any scrap of meat.

She darted through the forest, branches and leaves scraping her cheeks and arms. Victor trailed close behind, swinging his sword side to side to block the branches. Eurus held the only light to guide their way.

"Billy!" he yelled. He could yell as much as he liked.

She led him to the fence. She ducked under the boards, but Victor froze just behind her.

"What's he doing out there?"

Eurus turned her flashlight on Victor. He squinted at the harsh light.

"We're playing a game," she explained.

Victor pushed past her. Not too far though. He stood there for a moment. Eurus knew he was surveying the area.

He whirled around. "Where's Billy?"

Eurus kept the light pointed at their feet, reflecting dark shadows on both their faces. She cocked her head. "Billy?"

Victor stomped once and pointed his sword. "My Billy!"

Eurus smacked his sword with the flashlight. Victor stumbled back. She trained the light on him, his pupils narrowed down to points.

"There is no Billy, Redbeard."

Victor grew paler in the light. "What've you done?"

"We're playing, Redbeard. Play fetch."

The grass rustled in the wind, or maybe that was Victor's uncertain shifting. He hugged his arms around his middle and his head turned to and fro, then back to Eurus. Realization seemed to dawn on him, and he backed away one step.

Eurus took one step towards him.

Little Billy was no longer between them.

"I...need to go home," he stuttered. "Mum's worried."

Eurus stepped closer. Victor glanced over his shoulder and stepped back.

"You can't leave," Eurus said.

Victor's eyes darted to her hand. "Where is Sherlock?" he whispered. All the bravery leached from him like warmth.

Eurus slowly raised her hand and pointed. Victor half turned, then looked back at Eurus as if for confirmation. She dipped her head once.

His shoulders jumped up and down, his play sword jiggling in his hands.

She shook her head. "Play for me."

Victor sucked on his lip, then raised his sword over his shoulder. He turned his back on Eurus, facing the darkness ahead. Eurus lifted the flashlight, casting a short beam only a meter ahead.

"Sherlock!" he called. He marched forward.

She calculated his steps were only a foot longer than hers. It would take him eight steps whereas it took her thirteen.

"Sherlock, mate! Where are you?"

He kept to the path the light gave him. One two three, lookin' through a tree, four five six, count all the sticks, seven eight nine, put em in a line...

Redbeard's foot fell through the grass, and in just the blink of an eye, the ground swallowed him up, leaving a dark hole where he fell through. She heard his short laugh and a muffled splash.

Eurus felt a wave of calm wash through her, like every single emotion evaporated. She carefully stepped around where the stones outlined the wishing well. She kicked the grass away, some of it sprinkled through the opening.

Her light only reached so far down, so she turned it off so the natural light of the moon could illuminate it for her. After her eyes adjusted, she peered down into the dark. A high laugh reverberated off the stone walls, it pitched higher, almost as high as Sherlock's, and tapered off into blubbering sobs.

"Yoorus!"

Eurus could see a gray outline far below, and water splashing about. He laughed again. Eurus smiled.

"My arm! My arm, help! Help me!" He started crying, long wounded wails.

No, Eurus did not think she would. She straightened up and dusted off her knees so the grass would not stain them. Mummy did not like it when she came home with stains on her stockings.

The grass crunched under her shoes.

"Eurus? Don't leave me!"

His voice faded. By the time she reached the fence, it was nothing more than a distant dog howl lost to the wind.

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 **So sorry to cut you all off there. This part of the story had to be split in two.**


	6. Chapter 6

**Disclaimer: I do not own BBC Sherlock.**

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 _"But you... you were my favorite."_

His footsteps are hesitant behind her. He is in her web now, inescapable unless she unravels him from her tether. They both know that will never happen, not after everything she has done to get him here. He is different in this light. Still fragile, like a mirror about to shatter, but he doesn't see it. He refuses to see it. And the longer he denies it, the worse it will be when she does break him into tiny little pieces and reshapes him to how he should be.

All the while, the music dances in her head. Foolish Mycroft, letting the spider weave her own perfect prison.

He was never as clever as he seemed. After all, how simple was it for her to crawl out from under his nose, to play her part for him. He never wanted her to rise above, but to keep her as something to show off. Sherlock is the dumb little pet. She is the shiny toy.

He doesn't matter now. All that matters is the game. And now that she has her pieces ready, she will show him how futile his efforts are. No matter how he long he fights, in the end, he will always return to his roots. A lost little boy, still searching after thirty years.

She will burn the rest of him.

-x-

She would have kept him in that box until all that was left were the curly black hairs littered around bones white as Mummy's pearl necklace that Eurus loved to sneak. She had her two most favorite things in her favorite place. Her violin and her simple, sweet brother. Lost in their forgotten past. Up here, they could be forgotten together.

She picked up her violin.

She played her beloved instrument in jarring, violent, angry strokes. Punishing him for leaving her, for having Victor. This would be his life now. He would be there for her to torment always. Nothing but blackness and Eurus. He laughed and laughed, enjoying their game while Eurus scratched her violin to pieces. Her old scars reopened, but she played through the blood. Everything so wonderfully in her control. The hurt, the red, the blackness.

All hers.

Dawn broke over Musgrave Manor with a grey tint overcasting the fields. Eurus did not notice the light seeping through the dusty windows. There was no world outside the attic. Nobody but her and Sherlock. The brushes of her skirt along her legs, the weight of the violin on her cramped shoulder and stiff fingers. Sweat trickled down her back and between her thighs. It was only transport for her vast interior world to connect to reality. None of it mattered. Nothing mattered outside the music she and Sherlock played. She could see the notes flitting through the air.

She was going to bury him deep in the ground, not like Victor to be forgotten, but where only she could visit him, and keep him there just for her. She would make him laugh and dance for the rest of their lives.

Suddenly, like a window shattering into their sanctuary, Mycroft was there. He shoved her behind him so hard that she fell, and heard a crunch. The quiet _pings_ of the violin strings, shivering with pain.

Mycroft collapsed at his knees in front of the trunk. "Sherlock? Sherlock!"

He pounded on the lid and fumbled and yanked at the lock. He whirled around.

"The key!" he yelled, face red.

Eurus blinked. She stared down at the broken neck of her violin, the strings loose and wobbly. Broken. She touched the splintered wood, pressing her finger into the points until a drop of red beaded on her skin.

Mycroft gripped her arms and shook her so hard her teeth clacked. "Where is the key?" flecks of spit landed on her face.

Eurus giggled. She cradled her violin to her chest and laughed. She laughed and laughed because it was so funny. It wasn't fair, none of it. She just wanted to play and now everything was ruined. She laughed until she felt wet dripping down her face and her throat hurt.

Outside the ringing and red in her vision, she heard Mycroft yelling. Suddenly Daddy was there. A huge axe hefted on his shoulder.

"Sherlock? Can you hear me?"

Nothing. Of course there was nothing. His little voice had vanished hours ago.

Daddy nodded to Mycroft. "Stand back." He raised the axe high over his head and brought down with a jarring clang against the lock. After three hits and it still had not shattered, Mycroft pointed behind the trunk.

"The hinges!"

Took two strikes and both hinges were off with a splinter of wood. They tossed the lid off. Daddy's arms dove into the trunk and he lifted Sherlock, limp and blue, out. His nails were gone, fingertips raw. His pajamas had been worn through, bloody at the knees.

Daddy laid him on the floor and pinched his nose shut and kissed him on the mouth. Mycroft behind him, wringing his hands. Eurus had never seen his face so expressive before. Like a puppet. Dancing, playing, all for Sherlock.

His blue lips twitched and he coughed lightly, breath restored. He vomited on himself and started shaking.

Mummy held him while they drove to hospital. Eurus sat in the back next to Mycroft. It was the quietest car ride without Sherlock there to ask them questions. Eurus drew a red frowny face on her knee with her fingertip. It throbbed red and swollen in time with her heart. She wondered what would happen if she made her heart stop. If she could plug her heart like she plugged her nose. It would probably take much more than that. Perhaps if she laid books across her chest, and squished her heart beneath the weight.

Her breath fogged against the window. She could feel Mycroft's heavy gaze on the back of her neck, like a sweaty itch that she couldn't claw away.

He was much bigger than her. It would take a fridge sitting on his chest to squish his heart. She had never wanted to make him turn blue before, that was only fun with Sherlock, but it wasn't about fun anymore. She wanted Mycroft gone. Vanished in a black puff of smoke.

"Must have been looking around...gotten stuck in there," Daddy mumbled, his knuckles white around the steering wheel. Daddy always wanted to see what wasn't there.

"Why didn't she yell for help," Mummy whispered.

Eurus met Mummy's eyes in the rearview mirror. She seemed expectant, almost hopeful. Eurus knew what she was looking for, but she wasn't going to cry this time. Wasn't going to tell her it was all an accident. That she was too frightened to call for help. She was exhausted with pretending for stupid people. She never had to pretend with Mycroft. He could always see the truth.

Mycroft had to stay with her in the waiting room while the doctor took Mummy and Daddy back. There were lots of blocks and toys to play with, but she sat still and silent in the plastic chair. She didn't even reach for the colors. Mycroft at last said that he knew she did it on purpose. She nodded. There was no reason to lie to him.

She dug her nail into her knee. "You ruined it though."

"I saved his life, you stupid girl."

She could sneak into his room that night and press the pillow over his face.

"We were playing the game," she mumbled.

Mycroft knelt in front of her and grabbed her hand. She jerked but he wouldn't let her go. When she hit him, he grabbed her other hand.

"He can't even talk because he was screaming so much. It wasn't a game."

Eurus stopped fighting. "He was laughing."

She wondered for a moment if Mycroft had gone dumb. His mouth opened once, it seemed thoughts would not quite make it to his tongue. He shook his head and sat back on his heels.

"He was screaming. You weren't playing. You were torturing him."

Once, when they played down by the pond, they happened upon a half eaten kitten down by the bank. Patches of fur missing, only three paws, and no eyes. Gross, said Sherlock. Mycroft looked at the carcass for a long time, nose pinched and eyes wary.

He looked at her the same way in that waiting room, and every day since then.

They were not allowed in the attic after that. Daddy kept the keys with him. The axe was too heavy for her to lift. If she were bigger, she would have broken down the door. Mummy found the hidden pills and flushed them all down the toilet.

A few days after they returned from hospital, two policemen knocked on the door, showing a flier for a missing boy. Mummy called her down from her room.

A police woman sat down with Eurus and her mummy in the parlor. She asked if Eurus knew where Redbeard was. She asked if Eurus was lying when she said no.

"You know lying is a very naughty thing to do. If you know where he is, you must tell us."

Eurus did not like looking people in the eye, but if she didn't look at someone, they found her suspicious. She pretended she was like Sherlock, and told the lady that she was very worried about her friend. First his doggy, and now him. She said that she remembered him talking about running away because his mummy hit him.

"He said she always called him freak," Eurus bawled.

It took Mummy half an hour to calm her down enough to continue speaking to the police woman, but she said that was fine for today. They would let her know if they needed anything else.

Mycroft found her in her room and leaned against the doorway with his arms crossed. "You're a liar."

She turned over the drawing she had been working on before Mummy called her down.

"Lying is only bad because grownups don't like it when I don't do what they say." She slashed red across the neck of her little person. "That's what you want isn't it? Want me to do what you want."

She scribbled black curls over the round head. "I don't have to do anything Mummy tells me." She shook her head. "Neither do you. So what does it matter?"

Mycroft had turned white. Eurus wondered if he was dying. His hand had a slight tremor. "You know where the boy is."

Eurus' lips curled up. She looked up and made her eyes go wide and her lower lip stick out. She made her voice high. "He ran away because he didn't have any friends."

She drew big Xs in place of the eyes.

-x-

Her violin remained in pieces under her bed. She never got to tell Mummy or Daddy. Mycroft knew, but did not offer to fix it. Instead he made sure to keep by Sherlock's side, even when sleeping because Sherlock often woke screaming. He screamed a lot now. Or maybe he always screamed this much but Eurus never noticed.

A deep crack had split them apart. Eurus had always felt a rift between her and her family, not quite as wide as the one between her and the rest of the world though. Something kept her from them, but even Mummy sometimes sought her out, hoping to mend whatever chasm ripped her away. Now, Mummy left her alone, and Daddy looked uncomfortable to be in the same room.

Sherlock no longer spoke to her, wouldn't speak to anyone. He must have left his voice in the trunk. He sat with his knees curled under his chin, fingers stroking the fur on a stuffed puppy Mummy had given him while he was in hospital. He was empty. Nothing in him to make him speak or eat or sleep. Like the dead bodies on display in the museums.

His fingers and knees healed, but the doctors said it was all in his brain. He must have turned crazy.

In the silence, Eurus felt an absence within her. Like inky black fingers had reached inside her and pulled on a string and she was slowly unravelling. Food had no taste, music was pointless. What mattered if Sherlock was broken too? He might as well have been dead.

Pain, Mycroft taught her, was the mean tickle. If she saw blood, she needed to call an adult so they could help. No one could help her now. There was no red, but the pain was there deep inside. She wondered what would happen if she let all the red drip from her wrists. If she cut open her belly and let her stomach spill out onto the floor like a wet, floppy fish. Maybe the pain would drive away on a long trip and never come home.

So she invented a new game, one that could save him if he was clever enough.

But in his cruel innocence, he never looked for her. His heart belonged to the pet. His voice returned only to search through the woods, digging deep below the beech tree, looking even in his dreams for the boy. Searching where the police did not think to look. Eventually even they gave up.

She stopped singing. Sherlock stopped searching. She watched him roam among the gravestones from her bedroom. So many complicated little emotions that she could not sort through on her own. She wanted it all to stop, to feel nothing again.

She was alone. She understood that now. There was something inside her that would always make her alone. Make her a freak. She wanted to dig what remained of Victor Trevor out of that well and destroy him for being right. He was gone, but he still managed to weave his little wormlike self into her life.

It was not enough to make herself go away, knowing that she would lie cold in the ground for the worms to devour while Sherlock was still able to draw breath above her. That he would use that breath to fill his lungs and run as far away as he could, still screaming for Victor Trevor to return to him while she lay still and silent beneath him, unable to reach out and squeeze his throat silent and make him as still and cold as herself. She wanted them all gone. Blank. Dark. Poof. Erase them from the world.

She felt nothing but the warmth of the flame, finally touching that cold emptiness within her.

-x-

...and late at night, when the children are deep asleep, the icy cold drifts up from under their beds and wraps smooth as silk around them. A soft voice leaks into their dreams and asks them why don't they draw back their covers. They crawl out of bed, their limbs jerking like masterless puppets. That quiet voice says to them, good, good, now open that window by your bedside... And the children flip open the latch and the icy hand helps them to the window and they don't know how high it is because the hand keeps their eyes closed. And the sweet voice wonders why they don't step off the ledge because how nice would it be to feel the wind as they fly.

The east wind takes them all in the end.

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The End.

 **I really really wanted to finish this one. I started getting comments again, and realized that this story must be finished.**

 **I hope you all enjoyed it. I am so sorry for the long hiatus.**


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